Día de Lempira

By Katie

July 20 of every year is Día de Lempira in Honduras. We celebrated this special day on Friday at school. Lempira was a leader of the Lenca people who in 1537 united over 200 villages of different tribes to fight against the Spanish conquistadors. The Honduran money is named after him and he is certainly a national hero.

The day started out with a little program that included a beauty pagent to vote for the India Bonita (the Pretty Indian). All the Indias Bonitas here collected money from their friends and family and the person with the most money will wear her costume in the Independence Day parade in September. Alejandra, the girl with the coconuts, won.
Many of the kids dressed up in costumes for the occasion. They either dressed like ¨indians,¨cowboys, or a Spanish-influenced costume. Here´s the kindergarten class looking cute.

After the program, we all went to buy traditional food in the chumpas, the huts made of tree branches and palm leaves. Every school in Honduras makes these chumpas to celebrate Día de Lempira every year. A few teachers and students spent two days making them to get ready for the event.

There was a wide variety of food for purchase made by the parents of the students. Here´s Kelly with arroz con leche (rice, milk, sugar and cinnamon) and a tamale (a piece of chicken with other pot-pie stuffings encased in mashed corn).
Dayana and Victoria are eating baleadas, my favorite Honduran food. It's a flour tortilla with blended beans with a cheese and a sour cream-like dairy product.

Juliana (orange shirt) and Cheily (red hair tie) are eating Catrachos, which is also slang for Honduran (like gringo is to North American). Catrachos the food are corn tortillas fried crispy with blended beans and the sour cream on top. Lissy (the shortest girl) is drinking natural juice from a plastic bag and Edwin is eating fried corn dough.

A mom and Teacher Wendy are selling taquitos, or little tacos of chicken paste rolled up and fried crispy in a corn tortilla. They'll put a red sauce and some white cheese on top to serve them.


All in all, it was a pretty fun day celebrating Lempira and his efforts for the native people of Honduras.

Glow-in-the-dark Fun

By Katie

The front porch gang has been really excited to be back. There had not been school for three weeks because the teachers were striking again, so they were looking forward to some learning. To kick off the classes, I invited everyone to our porch at 7pm and gave out glow-in-the-dark bracelets. It was a smash hit and full of laughter. It was a rare move for me to give out something without making kids earn it, but was really a great thing to get a chance to see everyone again. Thanks to our friends at Calvary in Minneapolis who donated the bracelets!

A Great Welcome Home

By Katie

Here we are, back in Catacamas, Olancho, Honduras, safe and sound. We arrived to the airport in Tegucigalpa yesterday and met our director there. She took us back to the office where we ate lunch and then headed to the bus station. Four hours later we came home. It was safe the entire way and we had no problems whatsoever. Certainly everyone is talking about the political events and the possible implications, but most people go about their lives as normal, although a little more carefully.

When we got back to the house we were greeted by our neighbors Doris and Noé. A bunch of members of the Front Porch Gang also showed up not two minutes after we got home. It was great to see everyone again!

Our biggest surprise was that Doris and Noé (who are the caretakers of the house) had played Extreme Home Makeover while we were gone. They tiled our shower, fixed up the sink so that it works now, and painted two rooms. We were super surprised and very excited to come home to such great improvements! Life will be a little less like camping now :)

There´s a new volunteer here now who lives with Doris and Noé named Jordan. He, Matt and David are reviewing last year and making their next plans now. The kids are ready to have classes, so I´ll start those this afternoon already. We´re picking up right where we left off. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers for our safe travel!

Adiós y Gracias

By Katie

The bags are packed and off we go! Tomorrow at 5:30am we'll be boarding a plane in Minneapolis and will arrive in Tegucigalpa around 11:30am. There are two teams of people (an assessment team and crisis management team) that both have agreed that it is safe to return to Honduras.

We'd like to take this opportunity to say thank you to so many of you who we got to visit with during our time here. We thank you for your financial contributions and for the encouragement you gave us while we had face-to-face time here in the United States. Your partnership with us means a lot!

Please continue to pray for Honduras and the Honduran people, as well as for our safe travels and as we re-emerge into life there without family, old friends and some modern ammenities. Also let us know how we can pray for you!

No news

By Katie

It's been a quiet weekend for news from Honduras. The talks between the two rival presidents did not meet their aims in Costa Rica late last week, and we haven't heard of any definite plans for how either side plans to move forward. This is a big disappointment.

We've been talking to friends in Catacamas who say things are back to normal there, at least on the surface. It has been good to talk with them.

Meanwhile there hasn't been any decision made yet from the committee from the Christian Reformed Church about going or staying either, so the limbo continues. We got to do some fun things this weekend at the Dutch Festival in Edgerton; a parade, Mark Schultz concert, my first-ever rodeo, and hanging out with some friends.

Thanks for your prayers for Honduras and these uncertain times.

Thursday Update

By Katie

We're still here in Leota, Minnesota, and will be for a few more days. We've been talking via email, phone and skype to lots of our friends and co-workers in Honduras and it sounds like things are becoming more stable. The airport is open again and everyone reports that they're able to travel around the country like normal again. Of course a tension is still in the air because there are still issues to be resolved in the political world, but daily life isn't largely interrupted by that right now. So now we're waiting for the green light from CRWRC that we can go back.

The political world, however, could use a little prayer today. Manuel Zelaya (ousted president) is meeting in Costa Rica with Roberto Micheletti (interim president) in talks mediated by Oscar Arias (Costa Rican president and winner of the Nobel Peace prize for mediations he lead in the 80's). People in Honduras are hopeful that these talks will have sucess and have more going for them than previous attempts did in the weeks and days prior to today. Pray with us for fair talks, clear and honest minds, and a peaceful resolution to the crisis.

To find out more about the daily news in Honduras, we do searches through Google News and always read at least two articles by reputable agencies with each turn of events. I suggest reading two articles because sometimes one will have a slant to one side and reading an opposing angle gives a more full and accurate idea of what's going on. In case you missed the news as it first came out, here's a decently objective article that describes what brought Honduras to this in the first place. http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5686N820090709

We'll try to post a general update every few days, so please keep checking back to the blog to see what we're up to. Thanks for all of your prayers in this situation.

Still here...

By Katie

Surprise! We're not leaving for Honduras Tuesday. The airport in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, is closed for an idefinite period. That means we're staying here in Leota, MN with Matt's family for an indefinite period. We'll keep reading the news reports, emails from Hondurans and North Americans living in Honduras, and US travel warnings and prayerfully make the decision to go when we feel that the airport and roads are secure.

Meanwhile, prayer is appreciated, specifically for the process of moving forward with diplomatic talks toward a resolution, for the people of Honduras, and for our safe travel when that time comes. Many times over the past year we have seen how when we ask you to pray for something, God answers those prayers and we trust that He will hear all of us praying for this situation as well. Thank you for praying with us.